Kusano receives distinguished service award at regional conference

Ellen Kusano, director of Campus Center and Student Activities at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, received the 2008 Don and Noel Hinde Distinguished Service award for the Western U.S. and Pacific region.

The award recognizes longtime student union and student activities professionals who have made exceptional contributions to their organizations. The award was presented at the Region 15 conference of the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this month.

Kusano has been in charge of UH Hilo‘s Campus Center for 18 years. She was nominated for the award by Jan Javinar, director of Co-curricular Activities at UH Manoa, who won the award in 2006. Javinar praised Kusano‘s "service to others orientation."

"In between her advising, training, and program development duties, Ellen has had to manage the Campus Center facility, planning for and accommodating broader student affairs divisional services and offices, attending to both operational ʻnitty gritty‘ requests and concerns while handling the usual interpersonal challenges and unmet, unspoken expectations that other professionals and their clientele bring with them to the facilities," Javinar wrote.

The ACUI Distinguished Service Award is named for Don Hinde and his wife, Noel. Hinde was active in student union administration for more than 40 years at California State University-Sacramento and at Bowling Green University in Ohio.